this post was submitted on 12 Sep 2023
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richard nixon happened
Nixon feels like where American government took a hard right pivot and has kept going ever since. Disillusioned young boomers, Vietnam, "law and order", the Southern Strategy, the collective political realisation that "We don't actually have to fix anything, we just need to find someone to blame for it and that'll get us reelected"
Kennedy during the Cold War, specifically the Cuban Missile Crisis, united conservatives in a way that hadn't happened before. The hawks wanted a war to payback perceived Korean War indignations. The military-industrial complex that Eisenhower warned America about saw a chance to jump back into the prime war years of the 40s half a generation prior. Fascists like Roger Stone and Roger Ailes were just getting started and used the media to start adding politics to the language of news.